Great Expectations: The Nonexistant Expectations of Young Harry Potter
by rudefool
Summary: Remus Lupin gets the opportunity of a lifetime- to return to the magical world, while young Harry gets the surprise of having a mysterious benefactor of a convict that may just help him launch his hopes and dreams of greatness. 1840 Dikens inspired AU


Here's a taste, a beginning. All will be explained as events proceedado sit back and (hopefully) enjoy my strange parallels between a literary classic and what is to be, undoutably, a future literary classic. Cheers!

Rudefool

Young gentlemen, Remus Lupin decided, were little monsters. The irony was not lost on him- most certainly not- but those aspiring gentry were a special brand of beast. They would spit and stomp and curse like any boy, which was annoying enough, but the smug, nose in the air, 'Higher than Thou' attitude adopted by the little gremlins made them especially unbearable. They were the Muggle sort too, and while Remus had absolutely nothing against non-magic sorts, he had everything against ignorant, pompous sorts.

He would teach them Muggle English literature with a painstaking smile as they wore away at his otherwise hundred mile long patience. They poked fun at his plain attire- clothes he had transfigured from an old scrap of canvass he found down by the docks. They pressed his usually unpressable buttons with their atrocious papers that mainly read 'I am rich, so I do not need to try to do this work'. They brought scotch and cigars to class, drinking and smoking because they were above any common school's law. They acted rowdy and refused to do somethings while demanding to do others; all because they were little gentlemen.

Remus Lupin took this with only a mild smile and the occasional pursing of the lips. It wouldn't help to appear the beast he truly was. Not the young gentry sort of beast, rather the bone fide, blood-thirsty, monster-under-your-bed beast. Of course, the Muggles would scarcely piece the puzzle that was Remus Lupin, but it was a habit he had slipped into all the same. He quite a mild man and it took more than a handful of conceited schoolboys to usurp his constant calm.

That did not mean they had not aggravated him. There were plenty of eyebrow raises and sharp looks and more than enough "Mr. Williams. Please turn from the window and back to your text. I am sure the young lady is not nearly as impressed with your cravat as you are"s and the like.

Needless to say, Remus was rather relieved when he was dismissed from his position due to his 'unreliable health'. His health was perfectly reliable, actually; a disease that never failed with the full moon. The whole concept of unreliable health was quite laughable, really. Remus did not tell the Muggles about this, though. They were a rather unbelieving lot.

Now that Remus no longer had that job, he had to go through the most unfortunate ordeal of procuring a new one. And, as he found himself scrambling under the generally shabby arm chair in his generally shabby flat for stray pound notes, he almost missed the conceited bravado of the students he was once paid to teach. Or maybe his just missed the fact he was paid to teach the brats- which prevented him from being kicked out of his apartment. Remus could grumble to himself all he wanted about these unsavory circumstances, but he just was not the type to wallow in misery. Lamenting his short comings involved a large amount of not accomplishing things and Remus Lupin had to do something to prevent the inevitable eviction.

Just as he was fingering what turned out to be a scrap of discarded parchment, the fireplace behind him erupted in green flame and the great whoosh startled him into connecting the crown of his head with the solid wood of the chair. Remus lay for a few moments beneath the seat, cursing the universe for its deliverance of inopportune things at inopportune times. Behind him stood a rather grand and possibly ridiculous looking old man. He had swooped from the hearth like a large deformed phoenix casting his blue eyes around the room with the sharpness of a falcon. His gaze did not fall on Remus until a few seconds later when the old and magnificent man deemed it appropriate to rest on the arm chair currently sheltering its owner.

"Why hello Remus! I was wondering when you would make an appearance." he greeted the man below him, who continued on the floor like some unfortunate starfish shaped rug.

"Hullo Professor Dumbledore." Remus shuffled up brushing dust from his breeches. "And to what do I owe the pleasure?" Professor Dumbledor, being the grand old man he was, did not relinquish the arm chair and simply smiled at his former student like he owned the place.

"Remus. I am aware you are currently out of work." the younger man only nodded with an expression the hybrid of a smile and a grimace.

"That is correct Professor."

"And there is not much hope of finding one soon, am I correct?"

Remus only tilted his head in a somewhat apologetic gesture.

"Amoungst wizards and witches, no, but I have been somewhat more fortunate in the Muggle world. I may find students to privately tutor- you know they never notice my absences when I only visit them twice a week or so."

"But Remus, am I wrong to assume that those who are privately tutored are quite... Bothersome?"

"Your assumptions are correct Professor. They are the type to think highly of themselves at a young age, but I need to eat and the rich pay well." Dumbledore gave Remus a slightly patronizing look that the latter was not sure he appreciated.

"Remus, a job loved is a job well done. Do you not feel you are sacrificing the education of the children you loathe to teach?"

"I do not loathe them Professor. I only find them mildly aggravating. Anyways, someone has to do the job." Dumbledore only made a non-committal noise of vague agreement at this. He turned and fixed his piercing eyes on Remus.

"And what of those who are not, as you said, mildly aggravating who need a capable teacher like yourself?" The younger man furrowed his brows, the elderly headmaster continued."Students who must learn the subject of Defense Against the Dark Arts- a subject, correct me if I am wrong, in which you happen to be the expert." Remus nearly laughed. Was Dumbledore offering him a job or trying to draw him back into the wizarding world? Maybe both? The whole concept was particularly preposterous.

"Surely you are not suggesting that a werewolf teach at Hogwarts."

"Oh but Remus, a suggestion is a suggestion. Now if I were to tell you to do what you have just insinuated then who are you to argue?" said werewolf was not exactly in the mood for his former professor's verbal politics, but the whole thing was equally perplexing and exciting.

"You want me to teach... Magic?" all forms of eloquence died on Remus's lips.

"What else, Remus? Hogwarts students don't read Beowulf."

The young teacher had certainly forced enough Beowulf and the like on uncooperative students to last a lifetime and a half. It would be a relief if his lessons were not the equivalent of dragging an anvil up a cobbled street. Hogwarts was surely an escape from that tedium.

Remus nearly agreed right away, but the logistics forced him to pause. A thoughtful individual like himself never flew into things with such blind fervor. No, a man like himself would consider the reprocussions.

It was the year 1812 and werewolves were not commonly sought after as school teachers, or really any position that merited income in any way. It was merely Remus's wit and cleverness that kept him from living in the gutter with the rest of his kind. If he were to openly admit Lycanthropy to a student body he would surely be out of a job. If he did not someone would surely find out. The Muggles were ignorant to his disease; they assumed he had poor health and possibly a very ill- tempered dog that mauled its owner on occasion. Wizards and Witches would not be so easily fooled.

Dumbledore gave an expectant look over the half moon spectacles and Remus stole himself from immediately responding with a resounding 'yes'.

"I will have to think about this Professor Dumbledore. There are still many options for me to consider."

The old headmaster only glanced at him, eyes twinkling as if the answer had already been voiced.

"I'll leave you to that Remus." He rose from the chair. "And I eagerly await your reply."

"Yes Professor. Thank you Professor."

"Good bye Remus." and the whirl of green flame left Remus with the distinct feeling that the old wizard was planning to bother him until he got the agreement he wanted.

* * *

The graveyard along the river sloped in a dreary little pocket of mist, swirling between the weathered headstones. Here, things were incredibly grey, the grass bent in colorless blades and the ivy fell in limp clusters of vague, dark shade. Along the small, sad depression ran the river that cut lower through the land than the bleak cluster of tombstones. It flowed a rather unremarkable brown in the gloomy morning fog and an even more indistinguishable greenish hue by day. Marshes clustered its banks in a rather unfortunate quagmire of soft, spongy earth and sharp stalks of river plants cut down by the winter's cold. Higher up, nettles littered the bank like a spiny barrier for the beasts that rose from the water's depths.

It was all rather foreboding on this grey day when a young Harry Potter stumbled in the shadow of the steeple and down the narrow path between headstones. The early morning held that damp British chill that clung in his clothes and burrowed down into his very bones with its icy numbness. That morning was rather unpleasant, but it was one of the few times Harry could escape the clutches of his care takers and visit his parents' graves. Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Dursley were far more unpleasant than the early cold and wet of the day- in fact, they stood around the same level of awful as the shallow and smelly marshes Harry glimpsed from a crest along the bank. Petunia Dursley was the sister of his mother, thin and narrow as a switch for smacking naughty children and with a rather shrill and warbling voice like the unfortunate union of crow caws and birdsong played in reverse. His uncle, her husband, Mr. Vernon Dursley was- if possible- even more horrid than his wife. A stout and fat man who made his living only half repairing the townspeople's iron work so it eventually broke again and the unwitting customer would return for another fix and Dursley's ever expanding pocket expecting compensation. That was about as clever as the man got; the rest of his imagination remained the dull end of his battered hammer. The couple had spawned the perfect replica of all their worst traits packed into their tubby son, Dudley Dursley. He was about as dud-ish as his name suggested and he took particular glee in bothering his unlucky cousin.

Needless to say, Harry was enjoying the peace and quiet of the empty graveyard. The dark haired and small statured boy stopped before two headstones side by side and engraved 'Lily Potter' and 'James Potter.' Mrs. Vernon Dursley had told Harry they met their untimely demise painfully and rather unspectacularly with a simultaneous bought of consumption. Petunia seemed caught between grieving and chiding her sister's death when she relayed this and told Harry with some distaste that it was "No doubt that good-for-nothing husband gave it to her. He was always running around getting into all sorts of things, he must have picked it up on one of his foolish adventure with those nasty friends of his". And Harry could never be sure how to feel about his dead parents. At least they did not let him catch consumption too. Then he would be dead and who would the Dursleys have to antagonize? No one.

He prepared to kneel before the graves and spout a few words of uncertain anecdotes (What did one say to the ill fated parents they never knew?) when movement by the river bank caught his eye.

Where the bank shifted into a steep slope, a person was shuffling up on the bed of nettles and thorns. Harry stood frozen as the figure stumbled up at the top of the hill to look at him.

It was a man. A torn and tattered and thin man with a mass of dark hair that looked like a very dirty miss placed mop. His sunken but bright eyes pierced Harry's already waning courage, but the boy remained, fearfully regarding the person opposite him.

"You, boy!" his voice was harsh and apparent with disuse "What's your name, boy?" the man moved closer, surprisingly agile after his wrestle with the nettles and his tumble in the marsh. Harry's tongue was dust in his mouth- useless and crumbling.

"Tell me your name boy!"

"H-Harry, sir! Harry Potter." this came out fast and the young orphan thought he glimpsed some flit of almost pained recognition at Harry's name. It passed quickly, though, and the man's face settled into a rather disturbing grin.

"'Sir' he calls me." came an off handed laugh. Harry was still utterly petrified.

"Harry? Harold? Harrison? Did your parents give you that name?"

"I- I don't know, sir. Both my mum and dad are dead and my aunt and uncle never said how I was named." the man pulled another indistinguishable face, made further nebulous by the lank locks of hair clustered around his features.

"Dead you say? How's that?"

"It- it's awful."

"I wanted to know how they died, not about any personal opinions, boy!"

They- they... Died of consumption."

"Shame." the man continued with seemingly genuine sadness for the passing of the two people under the headstones before them.

"Listen, boy, I need you to do something for me. I'm a bit low on food at the moment and other people wouldn't like to see me off buying it. Your going to get it."

Harry opened his mouth to protest. He had no money! How could he get this man anything?

"And I don't care how you get it, boy. You'll meet me here tomorrow, same time or else."

"Or else?"

"Well, Harry," the bedraggled man began rather pleasantly "I have a good friend who just happens to turn into a blood thirsty monster under every full moon- you've heard of werewolves, right? And I happen to know how to tame him, but if you can't do as I say, he may seek you out and I will not try to protect you from him. Do we have an understanding?"

Harry gulped visibly.

"Yes! Yes sir!"

"Hah! Callin' me sir like that. Listen," the man gave him a surprisingly thoughtful look "There's a handful if people who actually deserve being called 'Sir' in this world. I ain't any 'Sir', boy- call me..." he seemed to dwell on this briefly, and his eyes gained the far off, yet calculating look that one gets when reading a very distant sign.

"Call me Padfoot."

There was little time for Harry to gawk at the odd name. The man gave his a disarming grin, out of place on his gaunt and hollowed face. His teeth were surprisingly straight and white compared to the rest of his person, making the smile especially blinding. Harry had no idea how to respond. Who named their child Padfoot? The man must have been the offspring of one of those gypsies Mrs. Dursley had warned him about. She told Harry it would be easy for those no-good, Roma type to snatch him up, seeing he already had the 'no-good' part down.

"Are you a- a gypsy, Mr. Padfoot?" this prompted a loud bark of laughter from the bedraggled man before him.

"I'm whatever you like lad." Harry imagined Padfoot as the organ grinder down by the bridge, complete with the monkey in his little red hat. Or maybe the baker on main street who gave them free loaves and who Mrs. Vernon Dursley always giggled around.

"Good luck with those dead parents." the strange man gave a half wave before descending the bank again and sauntering into the fog by the river. Harry watched until Padfoot's figure faded into the mist. He shook his head as if to dislodge the odd thoughts that had settled there. Mrs. Vernon Dursely would surely give him a few good switches if she knew what he had been thinking. Reminded of his aunt and uncle, Harry bid farewell to his parents' grave markers, scrambling back to the smithy and house that were never truly his home.

TBC!


End file.
